Bagpuss, the Clangers and the Pogles – along with other fantastical creations by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin – are celebrated in a new book, writes Kathryn Bromwich

Call The Midwife’s Jennifer Kirby reveals how Barbara’s death impacts season 8 ahead of the show coming back to BBC One.

The high literary style of Woolf and Nabokov was long ago condemned as elitist and replaced by bland accessibility. But there is now a return to verbal complexity, not least in the unlikely medium of TV

The new Turner family dynamic (with surreptious eye-sex still included).

When people talk about The Ed Sullivan Show the conversation almost always reverts back to Elvis Presley’s 1956 appearance watched by 60 million viewers, The Beatles first US live television performance on February 9, 1964 and, shockingly enough, the little Italian mouse named Topo Gigio. It was on December 9, 1962 when Topo Gigio crossed the […]

5,455 points • 98 comments

Bake Off returns for a sixth series on 5 August, and these are the 12 competitors who will be contending with their bakes and cakes to become master of the tent

Catching up on Absolutely Fabulous? Read up on Patsy Stone and Edina Monsoon's most quotable moments in the mean time...

PBS, NPR and more for North Texas and the world

Come, let me show you the other side of the world.

Soon I will post some holiday goodies, but let’s see what non-celebratory things we have lurking on the desktop today… To whet your appetite, we’ll begin with this stunning scene …

It's a strange world, isn't it? The recent vitriol spewed at Steve Balderson’s Firecracker resulted in opportunity: The chance to interview...

Photographs show lifelike sculptures of humans in varying scales created by artist Ron Mueck.

Here is a question posed more towards the US readers. Do you remember the good old days of watching British comedies on PBS? There was a time that I would tune in and there was so many great series to choose from. I started watching British comedies on PBS (Public television) in the mid-1980s. When I started to watch it, there would be a steady stream of programs from the 1970s along with newer series from the 1980s. Then, when we got into the 1990s, there would still be those series from the 1970s but also the 1980s and the 1990s. These were the glorious years to become British television fans. These programs seemed important because they were treated as great programs. Now, I can only speak for the PBS station in my area, KTCA (now TPT), but things have changed quite a bit. The question is what has changed? Back in the 1990s, a lot of great series were coming out of the UK and finding their way over here. Programs such as Mr. Bean, The Vicar of Dibley, The Piglet Files, Keeping Up Appearances, The Brittas Empire, Father Ted, Absolutely Fabulous, Men Behaving Badly, and As Time Goes By were great series that made their way over here. Of course other series from the 1980s were still being made into the 1990s, these series listed above started in that 1990s. I feel out of touch because it doesn’t feel to me that we are getting the same type of series now as we were getting on PBS in the 1990s. Why is that? I have no hard factual answers to this (who needs facts?). I do have some theories though. One series made me think about this subject and it was none other than As Time Goes By. Series 4 Episodes 1-6 TX 5/01/95-2/04/95 Anyone who knows me well may be surprised that I am writing an article about this series or for that matter has any copies of this series in my collection. I have gone on for years telling everyone I could that I am not a very big fan of this series. In fact, it would always piss me off when I would tune in to KTCA at 10:30 to watch something very probably like Are You Being Served? (probably to tape it for my own collection) and tune in in time to watch the end of the episode of As Time Goes By running previous to it and catch that horrible theme music. I couldn’t tell you how many recordings of any Britcom I taped off-air that would have the last 5 minutes of As Time Goes By because I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t miss the opening of the series I did want to record. I also have commented (rather rudely) that all the spines of the NTSC VHS releases had pictures of Judi Dench from each year of the series showing her progressively getting older. Thus, I renamed the series ‘As Judi Dench Gets Older’. I am true and true a fan of British television. When I had the opportunity to acquire this series, I did because I wanted to have it in my collection. It also sat on my shelf in my collection for many years doing nothing but gathering dust. I started this malarkey of randomly picking something from my collection to watch years before I started to write this blog. Back in December of 2007 I thought it would be fun to randomly pick something to watch on New Year’s Day but as a marathon. A lot of other stations such as Sci-Fi was showing marathons of shows (Sci-Fi always showed The Twilight Zone) and I thought I could pick something cool from my collection and do the same thing. Since I was randomly picking it, who knows what treasure I would choose to watch. Maybe one of the Quatermass serials or Doomwatch, it could even be Doctor Who. For my inaugural marathon I picked…..As Time Goes By. I was a little disappointed. I wasn’t a big fan of the series and wanted to pick something else but didn’t. If I kept randomly re-picking series until it’s something I loved, then what’s the point of doing this? So for that first year I watched Series 1-3 of As Time Goes By. Guess what? I really liked it. I should have known I would. It was written by Bob Larbey who wrote along with John Esmonde some of the greatest and most favourite British series of all time such as The Good Life, Please Sir, Ever Decreasing Circles, Brush Strokes, The Other One, and Mulberry. On his own he also wrote A Fine Romance (also starring Judi Dench). For some reason I thought the series would be overly sappy. I don’t know why that is but I did. What I ended up seeing was a series that was written very smartly with a great use of play-on words. It’s actually dialogue I could see Tom Good using. Why would have expected anything else from Bob Larbey? As Time Goes By is about Lionel Hardcastle and Jean Pargetter who were a couple in 1953 but when Lionel was sent to Korea, the two lost touch. Years later, they find each other again as Lionel needs a secretary and get one from Jean’s business. They eventually begin their relationship again. Lionel had been divorced from his wife and he is a writer. When they met again, Jean’s husband passed away and she has a daughter that works for her named Judy. By the time we get to Series 4, Lionel has moved in with Jean and Judy had been dating Lionel’s book publisher Alistair. Things go very rocky between Alistair and Judy as she finds him very pretentious. Lionel is at work on his mini-series he is writing for Hollywood, ‘Just Two People’. Series 4 is 10 episodes in length. It just goes to show how popular the series was with the British public (and in the US) as most comedy series are just 6 episodes per series. This article only covers the first 6 episodes. The series starts with Sandy (an employee of Jean’s business) who gets in a fight with her boyfriend and moves in with Jean, Judy and Lionel. Lionel is a bit prickly as it is but when Sandy moves in, he is upset because the room she ended up staying in was going to become his own study. At the end of Series 3, Jean gets Lionel’s very attractive secretary Daisy fired because Jean is jealous of her. Instead Jean finds a new secretary for him. The rather frumpy Mrs. Flack. Not only does she talk non-stop to make it hard for Lionel to get any work done, she constantly re-arranges everything in the house so no one can find anything. Neither Lionel nor Jean has the courage to sack Mrs. Flack because she is not a bad person, just rather annoying. Finally in Episode Three, Jean has an outragouse plan to get Mrs. Flack to quit but there is no need. She quits first for personal reasons. After all the years of Jean and Lionel having known each other and having a lost connection, Lionel proposes to Jean on one knee. Of course that knee locks up. Lionel and Jean disagree about whether they are engaged or not. Jean believes engagement is for young people, Lionel sees it as the time before a couple gets married is simply an engagement. There are some great eccentric characters in this series. Jean’s sister-in-law Penny plans on staying with Jean and Lionel for a while. Remember Sandy is already staying there too. Penny is upset because her husband Stephen is having an affair with his nurse Miss Breeze. Stephen is not having an affair with Miss Breeze. Miss Breeze is helping him arrange a surprise anniversary part for Penny and him. It is easier for him to keep the surprise if Penny continues to believe he is having an affair. It makes an odd sort of sense…..I guess. Even stranger than those two are Lionel’s father Rocky and his wife Madge. Both of them are older yet very free spirits and very well off. In fact, in Episode Five, Rocky tells Lionel his intention on giving his house to him. This prompts Lionel to feel more secure with his own life as he now has something offer to Jean which is why he proposed to her. One area that isn’t going to well for Lionel is his mini-series. The mini-series is about how Jean and he met and their relationship. Hollywood did not like the scene where Jean and Lionel first made love. Lionel, who is not the most romantic person in the world, had a lot of trouble re-writing it. First he was trying to do so while Mrs. Flack was still in his employment and she helped him in no way with the exception of telling him to make sure his socks stays on him. Then when Daisy re-joins him after Mrs. Flack left, he finds it hard to write such a personal scene while such a young beautiful person is in the room. Finally, he turns to the only person who would be able to help him write that scene, Jean. After all, she was there. Mike Barbosa, one of the producers, flies in from Hollywood to look at Rocky’s house as it seems like a suitable place to film part of the story. There Mike also explains some of the things he wants added to the script such as scenes of when Lionel was a boy. Lionel is absolutely not amused. I will tackle Episodes 7-10 next week and with that I will write a little bit more of my thoughts on the series. I wanted to touch on the question I posed earlier: are we out of getting new heavy hitting Britcoms for PBS? Now this isn’t some academic research I am doing or a scientific study. This is a question I have been thinking about and it is all entirely my own opinion. Back when I was really watching these programs in KTCA, it was a ritual. After a long day at school or eventually work, the one thing I could look forward to was sitting down starting at 10pm and watch some British television. It really was like travelling through a portal. Everything about it was special. It made an informative impact on my youth. When I was in Catholic grade school, I felt I was being rebellious by watching Bless Me Father. I remember loving the décor of the Parkinson’s house in Butterflies. I also remember being intimidated by Yes Minister because I thought the humour was too adult for me as a child. These programs formed my own sense of humour with biting sarcastic wit of Black Adder & Basil Fawlty and the wonderful play on words satirical humour of ‘Allo ‘Allo! Has this all changed? Is the BBC making programs like this now? The question is, how much does this have to do with changes in my own life? In November I am planning a nice-size article on my interest in tape trading. That is basically swapping recordings of programs for other ones I need to finish a collection. I was an avid video recorder and it was a serious art to me. Taping from the TV station itself is called an ‘off-air’ recording. That is the best quality you could get at one time other than breaking into the TV station and getting copies directly from the master tape or getting the commercial release. Unfortunately, back in the mid to late 1980s there weren’t always commercial releases of these wonderful programs so for me to get the programs I wanted, I needed to record these programs off the air on VHS at SP speed. That meant the best possible quality I could get. As the time went by (see what I did there?), I ended up recording all the stuff I wanted. In fact, by the mid-1990s, I had enough friends around the country and in the UK and Australia who would send me stuff, that I would still watch British television at 10pm every night but not KTCA. It would be the stuff I would get from my friends which would not be seen on the air on a PBS station (in my location) such as Only Fools and Horses, Till Death Us Do Part, Men Behaving Badly, Steptoe and Son plus non-comedies such as the Quatermass Serials and Doomwatch among many other things. To be honest, when I would check in to see what was being shown on KTCA, it honestly seemed like an endless loop of Are You Being Served?, The Vicar of Dibley and my good friend, As Time Goes By. Some programs such as ‘Allo ‘Allo! was incomplete on the PBS run. BBC Worldwide Americas never got the rest of series beyond Series 5 for years. Only within the last 10 to 12 years, they got the rest of the series with the exception of Series 6 which is still not available. Of their list of episodes they offer to PBS stations, they say this about Series 6: “SERIES 6 *Program note: Due to extraordinarily high residual costs, this series is not sold in syndication. Our screenings indicate that these episodes may be skipped by viewers without disruption to their viewing of the series overall. In the event that these may be re-negotiated sometime in the future, the program numbers that would have occupied in our library (episodes #55-62) have been left set aside.” I wonder what that is about especially as Series 6 is now out on DVD. Nevertheless, without the whole series available, back in the 1990s, I would skip it and watch my PAL copies of the series from UK Gold a friend in the UK sent me. What about other people? Some of these series were very difficult to watch unless your PBS station ran them but then a little shiny disc came out called DVD…. For many people, the British series shown on PBS were almost the only way people got to see programs made by the BBC (yes, I know cable networks like A&E made a substantial chomp into that) but suddenly programs that never made it over here on TV before were showing up on DVD. Studios were releasing stuff that some people may have only heard about. Programs such as Survivors, Timeslip, or Sapphire and Steel which never was seen by many people in the US before were readily available for purchase on DVD. Series that had way too many episodes for a realistic release on VHS (apart from Doctor Who) became available and took up little space such as Lovejoy or All Creatures Great & Small. More and more people were creating their own libraries and yet KTCA seemed to be always showing the same stuff. Now, there is nothing wrong with showing the classics over and over again. Not everyone who watched Britcoms on KTCA wants to own them. These people know that they will see As Time Goes By once a year or perhaps every other year. Are there any new comedies exported for PBS? The studio bound situation comedy on the BBC seems to be disappearing more and more. There have been some like Reginald Perrin. It seems like a lot more of the series tends to be comedy but have foregone the studio audience or laugh track. Programs like Beautiful People seem to be a good example of it. It has been said to me before that BBC Worldwide Americas will basically offer any program to PBS stations that they want. If the program the PBS station wants is not on the list of offered programs, they would need to pay for dubbing, converting and shipping of masters to the US. That is real expensive. I can’t imagine a station calling up to make a request to run Hancock’s Half Hour and pay for everything that is required to make it happen. Here is a list of 21st century Britcoms available from BBC Worldwide Americas for distribution: After You’ve Gone 2007-2008 As Time Goes By 1992 - 2005 Black Books 2000-2004 Coupling 2000-2004 Last of the Summer Wine 1973-2010 Lead Balloon 2006-2011 My Hero 2000-2006 The Old Guys 2009 – 2010 One Foot in the Grave 1990-2000 Outnumbered 2007-2011 People Like Us 1999-2001 Red Dwarf 1987 – 2012 Rev 2010 – 2011 There are a lot of series listed above who have stars in them that were bigger stars in other classic PBS imported series. Such as The Old Guys have Clive Swift from Keeping Up Appearances and Roger Lloyd Pack from The Vicar of Dibley. I have seen an episode of The Old Guys, I hope I caught it on an off episode. As I write this article, KTCA is showing Ballykissangel on weeknights. Is the broadcasting of Britcoms finished on PBS stations? Something really interesting has happened this year in Washington DC. WETA has devoted an entire channel to British television called WETA UK. It is what so many of us hoped BBC America was going to be yet was so disappointed with it as the years have gone on. My guess as to why a PBS could devote a whole channel to British television goes like this: when stations changed over to HD, they had extra bandwidth to use to accommodate the size of the HD signal. Channels could use that signal to make their own channels higher quality or they could split their signal and have up to 4 other channels. A lot of channels do that. TPT (formerly KTCA) has 4 other TPT channels. If you are in the Twin Cities, this is why KSTP also has KSTC. So for WETA, they have 4 stations. WETA, WETA HD, WETA Kids, and WETA UK. British television is not cheap. I hope they can keep this up. I want to move there so I can watch it and support it. Now, of course I can support WETA UK if I wanted as I could any other Public Television Station but even I think it is a little much to pay for a station that I have no way of watching plus owns most of the programs they are showing on DVD/Blu Ray. What shows are they airing? It’s interesting as basically all the shows that BBC Worldwide Americas offer to PBS stations are on this station. There are some things that they don’t offer which is on here such as Foyle’s War, Prime Suspect, and Sherlock Holmes. I would assume that the Sherlock Holmes referenced would be the Granada Jeremy Brett version? To stay on the original topic of the article, not many of the shows are from the 21st century and most are classics with some series being a cross-over from the 20th to 21st century. Stuff from the 21st century consists of Born and Bred, My Hero, Outnumbered, Last of the Summer Wine, Doctor Who, Antiques Roadshow, Monarch of the Glen, Lark Rise to Candleford, Prime Suspect, Foyle’s War, Primeval, Waking the Dead, MI-5, Life on Mars, Hustle, New Tricks, Coupling, Black Books, and Red Dwarf. WETA UK must have got a deal from BBC Worldwide Americas to get all of this programming and launch its own channel. If this was the heyday of British comedies of PBS back in the 1980s, the cost would have been impossible for such a station ever to exist. I applaud WETA and I hope this lives on for a very long time. TPT will never do a station like this. It’s a shame but not unexpected. At least I have hours and hours of programming I can watch for myself. To get a sample of what WETA UK is showing, please find below the schedule for its July programming. Long Live WETA UK! Update….. It seems almost like someone passed away. According to The Guardian in the UK, BBC Television Centre has been sold for £200 million. It has been bought by Stanhope plc. Television Centre was opened in 1960. The Guardian says the 14 acre site will be empty by 2015. Parts of the site was given a Grade II status by English Heritage in 2009. The Guardian posted some reactions by people on Twitter such as this nice one: "The BBC without BBC Television Centre is like the Royal Family without Buckingham Palace. Sad times," said @CameronYardeJnr.”. The good news is that the site will still be used for broadcast/production services and also will still have a BBC presence. BBC Studios and Post Production will still operate in there including the famous Studio 1. This could have been a whole lot worse. In May there was a great program about the place called Tales of Television Centre. It is a nostalgic and wonderful program with many who worked there coming to terms that a significant chapter to British television is about to close. Check out the program if you have a chance and check out my article I wrote about the program Tales of Television Centre. Next week: We continue on with the last four episodes of Series 4 of As Time Goes By. We look at the episodes and a little more background information on this wonderfully classic series. Have a great week! Do you have feedback, article requests or want to talk about a program but do not want to leave a public comment? Feel free to drop me an e-mail at [email protected] I am on Twitter: @FromtheArchive Also please subscribe to my From the Archive: British Television Blog Facebook Page for updates about new articles.

Amy’s Gurumis has moved! Go to amysgurumis.com/2013/07/21/call-the-crocheted-chummy to read about my crocheted Chummy!

There are so many new Battlestar Galactica fans out there and ones that have been there since the beginning with no way to really express their feelings about it, and since the other BSG confessions blogs haven't posted in months; I've created this blog. Please submit your confessions in either the submit box or ask box. I will find a picture that goes with it; but if you want to submit your own picture or request a specific picture I will do my best to find it. I will post anything and everything except extremely strong language or explicit sexual confessions, which will be edited out accordingly. Please try to be civil and not attack anyone personally. Also, I ask that you read through previous confessions so we can avoid duplications. I will not post repeat confessions. Confess away! *I will not correct any spelling mistakes and I won't change a confession in any way. So please do your best when you confess. *To read a confession about a certain person, just click on their tag and it will show you all the confessions about that character. *I won't ever abandon this blog unless people stop confessing. *My main account is jackandsamforever.tumblr.com *most screen caps are from frak-that.com

1. Olivia Pope